Slide
by Jayni
Summary: Companion piece to 2AM. Alex's POV.


It went against training, to scream her name.

It gave away his location.

Because the fact that he was standing in a towering inferno, amidst gunfire, explosions, along with sirens and helicopters all around… didn't already do that.

But it was his training that had kept him alive when the gunshots rang out, and it told him what to do when the ceiling came crashing down in a big ball of flame. It told him that he'd been shot at least three times, that one bullet was still in him, _somewhere_, and that he'll probably be needing a blood transfusion very, very soon. By all counts, he really shouldn't be moving… well, if it wasn't for the whole being a 'freak' thing.

The words, the voice -- 'Today, I'm glad to be a freak.' -- sounded in his head, and kept him going.

---

She slept more these days.

He would stay up and watch her, from across the room. He knew he shouldn't, though. He should be resting as much as he could before the mission.

Not to mention that watching led to thinking. In times of war, thinking is a bit of an epidemic. The only concerns should be survival. Idle thoughts in the field will get your head blown off, and it wouldn't matter that there had been tanks parked all around the barricades for months; that there had been two or three days of constant shellfire to try and flush them out. There was no place to be complaining about the lack of electricity, water filtration, or meagre rations. None of those things should matter, and he shouldn't be thinking that Terminal City was no place to be raising a child.

'But neither was Manticore,' he reasoned.

But the kids in Manticore were just test tubes waiting to hatch. A DNA string laying in wait to be spliced in all ungodly fashions. Or they were a product of selective breeding pairs, where neither party had to be especially willing to participate. Either way, the kids were made. Created.

Not _conceived_.

But this was not the time to be thinking about those things. Thinking led to talking. Which could lead to yelling.

He should be getting ready for the mission.

Not worrying about the woman waking up across the room, looking at him with searching eyes.

Not the time to be thinking about the future, of what would happen if you didn't make it. If any of you didn't make it.

It's not the time to call the baby _hers_, because you know it gets her, like when you say the baby should've could've been yours. If she let you be there for her. If she had had faith in you. If she believed in you to stay with her if she had told you she couldn't have children.

That you were proving it now by staying with her when she was pregnant with Logan's baby.

Would she always run away when things got tough?

She could take on Manticore, stand up to the entire Seattle PD, assemble hundreds of contrary transgenics under one flag -- because somehow all of that was easier than having faith in him. Easier than believing he would stay with her forever, because that's not what proposing means, or anything. The ring was just hanging out on her finger for i fun /i .

And he shouldn't be telling her all this now.

They should be resting.

The mission was only a few hours away.

---

"This has got to be _the_ best tasting burger I have ever had."

"Do we even know what meat this is?" Alec sniffed at it before taking a wary bite.

"Look, if you're not going to eat it--"

Alec leaned back and away from his lizard-camo buddy, Mole. "Whoa, I never said that." It was the first cooked meal they'd had in a while. With the growing numbers, the boundaries of Terminal City were marked broader to accommodate, to the upset to many 'well-meaning' citizens.

Wasn't too long since it was passed that transgenics were in fact considered a nation under international law, by the skin of a U.N. loophole. The barricades were pushed back, giving them a little more breathing room. Not that they still didn't have freaks sleeping on top of freaks in warehouses, sewers, broken air ducts, and unfinished condos, or any less under siege by the Ordinary population.

However, his unit, along with Mole's, had recently scavenged a Sector 12 greasy spoon. Once the residents heard 'the mutants are coming, the mutants are coming', they left in a hurry, leaving hot meat fresh on the grill.

Then, again, it didn't answer as to _what_ meat it was.

"Y'know. If you're not eating because of that turncoat '09er, I'm going to eat that burger and the hand attached to it."

He didn't really know if to consider Mole a friend, but he could swear the lizard man sounded concerned. "Man, are _all_ reptiles as carnivorous as you?"

"Only the ones who can appreciate a good cigar."

Alec rolled his eyes and shook his head, "After all she's done--"

"She got us together, that was one thing. But people are talking." Apparently, Alec looked as clueless as he felt. "Wait. You haven't heard? Don't you have cat ears or something?"

"Look, I don't know where this is going, but what happens between me and Max is --"

"Everyone and their _mother's_ business."

For that, Alec put down his burger. It was whisked off before he shot up to standing.

Mole put up his hands in surrender, though one was conspicuously occupied by Alec's lunch. "All I'm saying is that I ain't the only one with a bad eye on the Ordinary front. And Max being with one isn't earning her any points, no matter what she did months ago." Alec watched as he took a greedy bite of whatever meat that was, sinking back down to his chair.

He realized quickly that Mole had drawn the captured audience of most of the men around them. Sensing them out, Alec noted they had no response to the name 'Max' at all.

"People - _all_ kinds of people - have a short memory, Alec. It'd be good for you to remember that." Tossing aside the bun and all the fixings, Mole motioned with the paddy in hand, "X5-452 had her day and it's passed."

Months past, to be precise. She'd left Terminal City not long after the last time he saw her up on the Space Needle. It had hit him hard, but she still contacted them via satellite. He heard from her, but mostly through overheard conversations she had with Joshua. The first while, she would ask about him. 'Is Alec still hanging around TC?' 'Is he keeping out of trouble?' Very casual, nothing too specific.

But what Mole said was true, and Alec knew it. Hell, no one's ears even perked until he'd called out her designation; no one knew _Max_, but they all knew 452. He wondered if it wasn't a deliberate name-drop on Mole's part, but regardless, it was sobering.

It was a first for him to think it -- the thought made him feel… something that made him a little less annoyed that his stomach was still empty.

He was glad she left Terminal City.

---

He couldn't move.

Not because of the scotch. Never because of the scotch. He couldn't get drunk if he tried, thanks to Manticore.

Thanks to Manticore, he _did_ try.

The booze would just run its course through his veins and organs as they would in an ordinary, warming the blood. The real reward, was the way it burned away through his mouth and throat, tearing away any taste of anything or anyone else he could imagine or hope to be with.

It made him think he could forget. Forget Manticore. Forget the outside world. Forget she had laid there beside him just the night before.

She'd left him, and was going to leave Terminal City. For that guy. That _other_ guy.

His jaw clenched so hard it hurt, he could almost hear his teeth grinding together. He forced himself to calm down, dangling his fingers in front of him, distracting himself with the shadows they made.

All he had to do was look at himself, any part of him, and he was reminded he was Manticore. No matter how much he drank, or took, or run-ins with psychokinetic transgenics he had -- he would never forget that.

He remembered going out into the world and thinking they'd trained him too well. That they'd made him so perfect that he didn't need anyone or anything.

But that wasn't Manticore.

Manticore was about family. Bonds that couldn't be broken.

They had it all figured out back then. Where you went, what you did, who you did it with. It made him wonder if they were still around if they could tell him why they'd been paired. How they _knew_.

Maybe they'd made him for her from the very beginning.

Or maybe they just flipped a coin. Punched up all the numbers into a computer, sat back, and waited for the print out.

He almost wanted to laugh, but the sound hadn't passed through his lips in days.

Not since he could still taste her.

'Max.'

---

"You have _got_ to be kidding me."

"Look, Alec, I have told you before, and I will tell you again. This is the way it has to be."

"I'm _not_ Logan," he ground out. And this was no penthouse.

His gaze drifted to the view of Terminal City. Through half broken windows and hanging plastic shades. The tattered mattress on the floor, the broken tv set in the corner, the copious lack of electricity in the building, yet again.

She didn't say anything, only looked on in her trademark stubborn fashion.

Alec pressed the pads of his fingers into his eyes till he saw stars. His fingers then splayed across his face and drug it down, as if to stifle the frustrated scream at the back of his throat. He still managed to spit out, "I fucking hate you sometimes, Max!"

For his trouble, she smiled sweetly, lifting her shoulders in a shrug that was just _obnoxious_.

He ground his teeth, shaking his head.

"Fine. Fine. Have it your way." Alec steadied himself with left hand gripping the table, angling his casted leg, off the ground. He glared at her, snatching the small velvet box off the table in his right fist, and shook it at her, "I'll get you for this, you know." He didn't miss the way her lips twitched, like she would laugh. But he was gifted with his nightvision to see her eyes wide and glowing with hope.

It wasn't easy to maneuver, but he somehow managed to get his leg beneath him, despite it being in a full cast reaching near up to his groin. Made balance a little more than difficult, but somehow he managed to rest his elbow on his bent knee, fisting the ring box in hand. His other hand continued to grip the table. His nimble fingers managed to pop the box open. As he glared at her, he asked through his teeth, "Will you marry me?"

And after putting him through all that, she had the _gaul_ to tackle him.

He sighed into the kiss, resting his limbs on the ground beneath him in defeat.

---

It wasn't like he really had experience with this whole -- _schtick_.

Berrisford wasn't exactly something he wished to revisit, but he had no choice - it was his only field experience in these sorts of situations.

But Max was not Rachel Berrisford. In fact, she wasn't an ordinary woman at all. This was a woman who he had a cage match with, and _lost_ (though he'd never admit it was by any means right because she _so_ cheated). They ran heists together, took out bad guys, crawled in sewers twice a month at least…

Which could be why he felt stupid holding a bouquet of flowers and standing on her doorstep. Before the door opened, he'd tossed them a rough forty feet towards an open window at the end of the corridor.

Original Cindy looked him over with a quizzical look, pushing back her hair, not understanding where the sudden gust of wind came from. Alec rubbed his palms together and motioned for her to let him in. She leaned back on the balls of her feet, angling her chin down, "Oh no, sugar, I know you ain't taking my boo out looking like --"

Alec's hands ran over his the front of his t-shirt and he examined himself. It looked clean. It was clean that morning. And this was his best riding jacket. What was she _talking_ about--

"OC, I got claws of my own."

That got his attention. His eyes jerked up, looking at her through his eyelashes, and then couldn't help but let his eyes wander a little. "… hey, Maxie. Have I been a good boy this year?"

He could hear Original Cindy snicker into her fist, while Max rolled her eyes. She didn't move out of the doorway, and he wasn't being let in. He motioned his hands vaguely for one or the other to happen.

Max looked him up and down, and even leaned out to look behind him. Alec turned halfway to look over his shoulders and then down over his pants. What the hell was she looking for?

She took a step towards him. She was _sniffing_ him. He watched her eyes stray to the open window. "What? No flowers?"

Was she telling him to go jump out a window?

He didn't realize his jaw had dropped till she nudged it shut with an open fist. Closing the door behind her, she winked at her roommate who was doing her best to hide her smile. "Don't wait up."

'Women.'

---

This had to be some kind of trap. They planned this. Her and her dogman.

"I uh. I don't know what to say." Alec tucked his hands in his pockets.

Max's hands were at her hips. "It's a painting, Alec. You've stolen, sold, and forged 'em, so a nice word or two shouldn't be too difficult."

"How come you only paint girls, Josh, my man? I mean, and you stop too high up, you can't capture the fullness of their--" Alec was making the rounding motions with his hands, and he didn't bother to dodge Max's fist as it came down on his shoulder.

"Ugh! I can't believe you!" Max's hands retreated to cross in front of her. "I think it's very nice, thank you, Joshua." She leaned over and gave Joshua a noisy kiss on the cheek.

Alec, pouting as he rubbed his arm, felt Joshua looking at him, and raised his eyebrow.

"Alec don't like 'Little Fella'?"

"Pfft, I like her fine, when she's not _hitting_ me."

Joshua shook his head, "'Little Fella.' By Joshua, Number 54." He motioned his paintbrush towards the canvas, poorly concealing his knowing smile.

Alec licked his lips a little, pursing them as he turned to see Max looking at him. Her arms were crossed, and she was clearly waiting for him to say _something_.

"Yeah, uhm, well." He stalked over to the canvas, squaring his thumbs and forefingers to frame it. "All of your stuff is great, big guy," he started. It was the truth, even though Max was looking at him like he was spinning a lie. He had to work on that. The painting was of Max, wearing her little grey sweater cap, and her black hoodie. It captured her smile, the way she would look down her nose as she did. When she smiled, there was that split second where she would think to hide it then realize it was okay - that it was safe. And there it was, on the canvas.

Alec observed all this, but said, "Almost makes her look like she could pull off being a lady once in a while."

And then the shoulder, _again_.

He winced and went back to nursing his will-be bruised shoulder, moving behind Joshua for cover. "The beauty of false advertising."

"Alec should be nicer to Little Fella." Joshua glanced at Alec from over his shoulder, waving his paintbrush in a scolding gesture. "She bites."

---

"There's nowhere to run, X5-494."

Alec took a step back, holding his hands up in surrender. "I guess so." He tipped his heard, raising an eyebrow in question. "So what happens now?"

"You're going down."

"Oh, you think so?" Alec smirked, hooking his thumbs into his pants pockets.

And when she came barrelling towards him, he caught her, letting her take him to the ground in standard tackling fashion.

All thirty-six pounds of her.

"Whoa there, girlie, where'd you learn to do that, I wonder?" He was smiling as he gathered her up into his arms, as he moved to sit up.

She was smiling at him, showing off the gap from losing one of her front teeth.

He poked her lip just above it, and winked at her, "You shouldn't play so rough."

"But I'm going to have a little _brother_, Daddy." She eased off of him, giving him room to brush off and get up. She bounced at his side, as he walked her across the playground. He manoeuvred deftly around a forgotten sand pail and shovel lying on the grass.

Grass was once a great luxury in Terminal City, but it had happily spread over time.

"Yes, and he'll be very little for a while still. You can't go tackling him all the time." He ruffled her hair and she giggled. He sensed Max coming up from behind him. His smile was hiding just at the back of his throat, "Because guys don't like that until they're much _much_ older. Isn't that right, Mom?"

He could practically hear her head shaking with disapproval before he turned to see it. The girl ran to her, struggling to get her arms around Max's swollen belly. "Is that true, Mommy?"

Warmth pressed against his back, and he could feel near every curve of her held to him as Max's arms wrapped around them both. She took in what could be a suffering breath if only he couldn't glimpse the smile on her face from the corner of his eye. "Your Dad is many things, but a liar isn't one of them."


End file.
